Judges Cheryl Allen and Joan Orie Melvin of Pittsburgh, along with Paul Panepinto of Philadelphia, are vying to run for one, open slot on the state's highest court. The winner will go on to face Democrat JackPanella, a state Superior Court judge from Palmer Township, Northampton County.

But what, exactly, are these four candidates fighting over?

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Right now, Pennsylvania's 7-member Supreme Court is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats. And most voters have an inherent understanding of the effect that a liberal or conservative majority can have on the United States Supreme Court on such hot-button legal and social issues as abortion and gun-control.

But in the Keystone State, the matter is not as cut-and-dried, veteran court watchers told Capitol Ideas.

Take, for instance, Justices Debra Todd and Max Baer. The two western Pennsylvania Democrats are reliably liberal votes on matters such as search-and-seizure, said Bruce Ledewitz, who teaches state constitutional law at Duquesne University Law School in Pittsburgh.

But Todd and Baer's fellow Democrat, Justice Seamus McCaffrey of Philadelphia, is a conservative vote on that same issue.

"This year, they [the candidates] have been saying it matters," Goodman told us this afternoon. "From a reformer's standpoint, I'd like to tell you that there's no role. But I can't say that. They [the candidates] have been saying this one matters" because of redistricting.

Republican consultant Charles Gerow, of Harrisburg, agreed.

"On reapportionment, they're a political body, and I think everyone understands that," he said.

There's also another area where a partisan majority could matter, and that's the appointments to the legion of boards and commissions under the high court's control.

If Republicans take the majority, that could mean that a GOP appointee could be put in charge of overseeing judicial matters in Philadelphia, which is overwhelmingly Democratic, observers said.

Political control of the courts could matter in another area, and that's in national assessments of whether Pennsylvania glows a Republican red or shines a Democratic blue.

Despite a clear Democratic registration majority and victories at the polls, experts also take partisan control of the courts into account when they make their determination, said Larry Ceisler, a Democratic consultant from Philadelphia.